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Summary:September 26, 2014: A nighttime patrol of the docks nets a… bigger complication than expected, for all parties involved.

NY Harbor - New York City

This is the mouth of the Hudson river, where it empties into New York Bay and the Atlantic ocean. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world, home to the oldest American dry dock, several major rail terminals and, of course, the Port of New York and New Jersey which is the third busiest port by tonnage in the Eastern US.

Night in the Big City - the docks are still busy; though at this time of night, it's not the legitimate businessmen out and about or moving cargo. Burly dock workers with prison tattoos move large crates with forklifts and bark brief, gruff orders to each other and grunt back in exchange.

There are always people watching, of course.

The still-bumping noise of some grindhouse, muffled by closed doors but occasionally revealed as patrons trickle in or out - raucus cheers, hoots, glasses on wooden bar-tops - pairs with the sloshing of current around ship hulls and distant horns.

-

The docks are easy pickings for someone looking to burn off a little energy. Tonight, Kate started out around Bishop Publishing's warehouses, then worked her way out toward other areas, moving along the rooftops for the most part. The nice thing about patrols? It means she actually has all of her equipment with her.

At the moment, she's crouched at the edge of a roof near the movement of the crates, watching the process. Still gathering information, she's left her bow slung over her shoulders for the moment.

-

There's a flickering by one of those forklifts and it comes to a halt. There's some cursing for the operator by the others till one loses patience and walks over. Then there's a shout of alarm when he discovers the driver slumped over the controls with his head twisted almost 180 degrees.

-

A pat on the back, and a friendly embrace between two rather burly men takes place. "Take care kid" Jason, a man in a pair of off brand slacks, and plain white shirt, speaks as he goes to move away. For a moment the screaming doesn't really get his attention all that much the man just thinking it to be your average sort of workplace accident, but the reaction says it's a bit more then that. In an instance he's got a gun drawn from seemingly nowhere, flicking the safety off in a quick motion.

-

Lights flick on around the outside of the warehouse, various weapons clicking and priming… was that some sort of -electronic- noise? As one goon comes trotting out to check on the shouter, others start to take up paranoid positions.

Anyone with knowledge of such will notice that something seems a little different about the weapons that are coming into view. They are not standard ordinance, metal (if it is metal) a sickly shade of yellow and oddly shiny.

-

Well that's new and interesting. Kate perks up a bit at the shouting, freeing her bow and creeping across the rooftop to where she can get a better view of things. From a distance, in the dark, she can't exactly tell what happened to the forklift driver, but she can tell something here isn't right. Moving cautiously, she draws an arrow from her quiver, keeping it loosely nocked against the string as she seeks out a better vantage point for…The sight of the weapons gives her a moment's pause, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

-

There's a brief reflection of light on metal as, out of the night, a shuriken buries itself in the eye of one of the men. As he falls, the strange looking weapon clatters to the ground.

-

"God fucking dammit," Jason screams as the pain knocks him to the ground, causing his gun to fall right to the ground with a clatter. He's not exactly sure what he could have done to avoid that, but fuck if it doesn't hurt like hell. Without too much care he rips the metal star right out of his now profusely bleeding eye. Now it's personal. He pushes himself right back up to a stand blood running right onto his formerly pure white shirt, and pulls out a rather threatening looking knife from a hidden holster on his person.

-

Things really seem to kick into high alarm now - some kind of low siren starts to sound, flipped by some mook in an upstairs security room or something, no doubt. One particularly panicky moron somewhere near-ish the spot where Jason just lost an eye curses, fumbles his own weapon, and sends a blast of crackling red energy over near Hawkeye. WELL overhead, but *ZAKT* nonetheless.

Naturally, other goons start firing random blasts at random targets in their own startlement.

Two particularly stupid guys shoot each other - and rather than deal with smoking craters in their bodies, each of their faces are a sudden rictus of pain. Their own screams of horror and the unmistakable sound of bones crunching add their notes to the night.

-

Kate ducks down as the weapons start to go off, wincing as people start screaming. This is officially above her pay grade. Sort of. Reaching into a pocket, she fires off some sort of message on her phone before lifting her bow once more. Chaos is…bad, right? Maybe. But given what's going on with those weapons, it might be an improvement over organized action. Making the decision, she draws back on the string, firing the arrow into the center of the mayhem where it goes off in an actinic flash of light and loud crack of sound.

-

In the shadows, Midnighter smiles at the reaction. Chaos is good. Chaos is amusing. Confusion to the enemy! And look there: an arrow. It seems he's not alone here and scans the night for the newcomer. Knowing the trajectory of the arrow makes that simple. Another shuriken targets the panicky thug near Jason. It leaves a deep red line on the side of his neck; one would guess a lucky miss but it's exactly what Midnighter wanted.

-

Jason holds his hand to the side of his head for a moment, trying to get a look at what dead man threw that bit of metal right into his skull. The older man beside him who had been conversing with Lucky just a bit ago suddenly looks a lot more worried. "Fuck man, we gotta get you to the hospital or som-" Already trying to get the twenty something out of there.

The moment that red line shows up on the mans neck something snaps for Jason. He's not on the docks anymore he's back in the middle of a war zone blood continueing to run down the side of his face Jason rips the gun right out of his hands and starts firing into the direction of this most recent shot screaming at the top of his lungs. "You useless fucking gook bastards, I'll skull fuck the whole lot of you useless piles of shit," Even with over fourty years service with special forces, and high marksmanship with one eye and one hell of a lot of untapped rage, Jason's not exactly on top form as he swears at the top of his lungs in a heavily gravely voice that sounds like he's been chugging gravel every morning. "Take those dick less assholes out, before they slaughter any more of our boys,"

-

There's a chorus of startled shouts as the flash-bang arrow cracks and blinds anyone unlucky enough to have not been behind a crate or half-way through a blink; it's echoed by a much louder *BOOM*, not entirely unlike the breaking of the sound barrier. The light doesn't die down, either; a spiraling tunnel of cascading concentric circles of brilliance opens right in the middle of a freshly-floored group of goons. The figure traversing the tunnel at running speed seems to look back, press something, and then leap for safety…

Into the middle of a firefight; Jason's cursing and gunshots and the gang goons yelling and firing blasts of crimson.

Crouched defensively, the decidedly female figure is nearly as tall as some of the men. As she stands, throwing her shoulders back and tossing her hair, the space bikini and booties are almost immediately at odds with the preternatural way she assesses the battle with cold blue eyes. She'll ask questions later — the first thing she does is grab the wrist of the nearest goon, bend his arm unnaturally and grab the device in his hand while she throws him away like a used tissue. His scream fades into a splash while she studies.

Riled up by Jason's visible break-down, the gangers rally to his direction — even if he's completely cracked and has no idea what's attacking them, he seems to have an eye for where things are coming from. Which means there's suddenly Jason's gunfire and a lot of crimson bonecrusher beams aimed in the general direction of Midnighter's latest attack.

-

"What in the…" Kate mutters under her breath, running along the roofline to get a better vantage on all of the fight. She's definitely not going down into that. Those weapons, though…Those are trouble. For the moment, she rummages through her quiver, trying to decide what the best counter is.

-

Midnighter knows not to stay in one place, especially when engaging. Just as he tracked the path of the arrow, so too can the shuriken be tracked if someone saw it in flight and he moves even before it found its mark. Not all of those beams are being aimed though and he has to dodge and roll to avoid a couple of the more wild ones. Staying low, he takes stock of the new arrival. Manhattan. Never boring.

-

Right as someone's gone into the middle of the frey Jason's turned himself around still completely unsure as to what's going on as instincts and training takes over. The twenty something man taking a quick swing with the oddly colored firearm as if it were a staff. At this point he really can't even control himself something else in his mind taking over for him.

-

Obviously deciding SOMETHING about the confiscated weapon in her hand, Barda hangs it from her belt and starts wading through goons like the most annoyed bee-keeper ever. Mostly they get thrown up and away - a handful that land in successive heaps on the rooftop Kate runs along, others over near Midnighter; all stunned or otherwise unconscious.

And then Lucky is in her face. He's… swinging the weapon at her like a staff and is fighting with zero peripheral vision. For now, she seems content to let him make his attempts - weaving and blocking, countering blows with slaps and redirects while she assesses his measure.

"You lummoxes will leave RIGHT NOW if you know what's good for you!" Barda shouts. "Lay down your arms and you may yet survive!"

-

Smoke arrow! There are so many reasons Kate actually keeps her quiver organized. Unlike certain other Hawkeyes. Once she makes her selection, she relocates again, trying to let the chaos below offer at least some cover. It's still too hot down there to try and interfere, and she's not inclined to risk lives - unlike the others below. Once she has some cover, she fires down into the fray again, and the arrow starts to hiss, emitting a thick, white smokescreen.

-

Making his way around the perimeter, Midnighter slips into the shadows near Kate. An interesting development and one he couldn't predict. He's not a precog to know an alien is going to wormhole into the middle of a fight. "Something explosive into the building over there would be tactically sound."

-

Left parry block right right, even with half his vision Jason's still got a decent enough handle on the situation. He's not gaining headway, but if he can just tire out whoever this is he might be able to get his men out of this situation. Even if he does have to go back to the camps. So he fights his hardest going for a sudden leg sweep as the surroundings begin to fill with smoke.

-

As the smoke-arrow sails overhead and floods the scene, Barda puts all of her focus on the man foolish enough to take her on. Bursts of crimson can be seen through the fog, and everything seems to strangely hush - the occasional burst of energy as thugs start to really get nervous; the clatter of a crate of weapons tipping over; the blood-curdling scream of someone very likely getting one of those blasts in an unintended manner.

Determining her combatant is no more physically strong than any of the rest of the men she's thrown aside so far, though far more skilled, Barda leap-frogs over the leg sweep; "You fight with spirit, but you will not prevail!" She telegraphs a low sweep of her own to follow up with a standing spin-kick and hopefully provoke him into blocking with the gun, "I led the Female Furies of Apokolips - You need at LEAST another decade in the Pits before you can HOPE to best Big Barda!"

-

Kate starts to turn as Midnighter appears at her side, letting out a breath when she recognizes the man. Sort of. "I'm not even sure what my tactical goal is right now," she admits, though she has an arrow nocked in a moment, selecting a corner that might pen the fighters away from more populated areas of the docks once debris starts to fall. "Any idea just where all of this insanity is coming from?" She fires in the same moment, and the arrow sticks in the cinderblock construction of a count of three before exploding, sending a cascade of cement into the alley that leads to the broader area of the docks.

-

"Ask the woman." Midnighter suggests. She seems to be a likely source of it given her method of arrival. He'd like to himself but he has a train to Gotham to catch and this turned out to be more complicated than he was told it would be. As the archer strings another arrow, he steps back and then disappears into the shadows. It was fun while it lasted.

-

Jason would like nothing more then to just keep fighting until the blood loss takes him, but as he goes to swing there goes the beam of one of those strange rifles right through his head, missing Barda by less then an inch. It hits him square in the forehead sending the bloody mess of a man falling backwards onto the ground, blood spurting out every which way in an unnatural manner.

-

Explosions, death, mayhem… when her opponent falls to a blast and he dies gruesomely, Barda takes no pleasure in it. In fact, there's a moment where she just… takes a heavy sigh. Standing to her full height, she touches fingers to her lips and whistles loudly - "You up there! Have you something that will strike a specific hertz and decibel level?" she yells upwards - she knows SOMEONE is up there firing off devices.

Abruptly introducing one of her elbows to an approaching thug, Barda follows up with, "We need to neutralize these weapons before any MORE lives are lost!"

-

Midnighter is gone as suddenly as he appeared, and Kate turns a suspicious eye on the strange woman below. "You're not striking me as super trustworthy," she calls back down, "But theoretically speaking, what sort of levels are we looking at?" She's already got one hand over her shoulder, fingers brushing over the shafts in her quiver as she searches out the relevant arrow.

-

"Something in 150,000Mhz, a short burst of about 50 decibels should do it." Anyone with Super-Hearing is going to be in pain for a minute, but normal hearing range types won't really hear it. "The crystals that conduct the power can't withstand the resonance, and these weapons are very poorly shielded!" Barda is clearly not impressed; she takes the one she confiscated from her belt and just holds it flat in her hand.

-

It's odd that despite how most people seem to react to being shot by one of these alien weapons anywhere on the body, shortly after being struck by it instead of slowing down the blood flow from the now deceased lucky increases. It's not really noticeable at first with the smoke and the craziness of all the combat, but there is a lot more blood flowing from his body then should be physically possible, as it just runs out of his eye, and from his forehead. The blood quickly begins to pool on the ground.

-

Forget arrows, there's an app for that! No, really. Kate has an app for that. Probably something she uses to check Clint's hearing aid. Lowering her bow, she pulls a cell phone out of her pocket, tapping in a few keys and pumping the volume. "Hitting it!" she calls back, punching the last button to send out the signal.

-

Barda doesn't wince - her hearing isn't in that range, but the weapon in her palm and the weapons of the unconscious thugs littering the rooftop all *spark* and there are little puffs of smoke. Looking around, Barda waits until all the weapons she can -see- have sparked, before nodding once. "That should do it!"

In the mean time she starts pulling -apart- the one in her hand, tossing aside the casing and rooting out bits of circuitry… stepping BACK as the pool of blood starts to near her shoes.

-

Most of the blood seems to be coming from the corpses eye, as the body goes completely rigid as if having already gone through the full process of rigor mortis in a matter of seconds. There's a lot of blood, and it's getting everywhere, running off of the docks and into the water.

-

Kate arches a brow as the weapons start to spark, taking a mental note of that particular frequency before stopping the app and tucking her phone back into her pocket. Now? Now is the awkward moment. She'd very much like to leave the scene, but she did put out a call that there was some very weird stuff going down at the docks. And given the growing body count, it seems like maybe she should keep an eye on things. She settles for splitting the difference, moving to the edge of a roof closer to the action. "So, uh," she calls down to Barda. "Where are those things from?"

-

"The technology that powers them is from Apokolips, but the make is not known to me," Barda answers while further prodding. "Likely something was stolen by or given to someone here, but to what purpose? Why put the weapons of the armies of Darkseid into the hands of mortals?"

"The apocalypse? Like the end of the world?" Kate pauses, then makes a face. "Is this one of those time travel things, because those always get confusing." Almost as confusing as congealing men. She watches the progress of the blood, torn between fascination and, well. Gross. "No, that probably shouldn't happen," she agrees. "And I'd say kill it with fire, except I don't actually advocate killing people who don't seem to be an immediate threat to other lives."

-

From the looks it seems almost as if the mans eye is growing right back into the spot it was, before the bit of metal struck it out from his skull. Once the eye is fully grown the blood flow from the corpse stops completely. There are no more cuts from which the blood to escape, the body now covered by the stuff.

-

"No, Apokolips is a planet. I have traveled through space, not time," Barda looks up from the corpse, looking only faintly annoyed. Moving away to let it… keep doing whatever it is it's doing, she starts to check the crates for identifiable markings. "The Bonecrusher Ray is obsolete there, at least as far as being used as a weapon goes. If they are being produced here…" gears are turning in her head, but she doesn't speak the rest of whatever she's thinking out loud.

"I need to speak to someone involved in protecting this planet from off-world threats as quickly as possible."

-

"I'm not sure we have an agency for that." She may be confused, but at least Kate doesn't seem to be panicking, either. "But in the interest of full disclosure, I did put out a call to someone in SHIELD before this all went down. They probably have the contacts you're looking for. Superman, I guess? Maybe Wonder Woman?"

-

Well for a bit nothing really seems to happen with the body of Jason, and then it suddenly surges into the air for a brief moment. It's the same sort of reaction you'd expect from someone who'd just been defibrillated. He takes in a sharp sudden breath of air filling his lungs before sitting back bolt upright on the ground. He calls out rather loudly before coming back to his sences "Happy birthday,"

-

"I will have to take your word for it, I don't know who either of those people a—" Barda admits, and then … yyyyeeeaaaaah. Half-way through pouring remains of pulled-apart weapons into one of her belt-pouches, that happens. She doesn't even really know how to react, so she just -stares-, wide-eyed.

-

"Definitely ought to talk to SHIELD," Kate starts to say as Lucky shoots up, jumping back a bit from the edge of the roof. "Wow. Okay, Frosty. You should talk to someone, too, because that? That's not normal."

-

"Yeah, people killing my god son isn't very normal is it," The now somewhat blood soaked man says coming back to a full stand, looking like he'd just woken up from a rather long uncomfortable nap in a pit of blood. Just like that he's already walking off down the docks, pulling off the old shirt, and replacing it with a new one from one of the unconscious men just laying there. For a moment as he does remove the shirt it's clear that he's completely armed to the teeth, guns strapped every which way to Sunday, and before anyone can stop him he's just gone.